1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to baseball gloves, and in particular to a baseball glove with a replaceable glare reducing transparent shield.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Unique to baseball is the situation of having to field a ball that is batted or thrown to an altitude at which there is difficulty in perceiving the ball's in-flight location because the ball gets lost in a bright background such as against the sun or against a stadium's high intensity field-illumination lights during night play.
The present invention concerns allowing the baseball glove wearer to sight an overhead ball, specifically through the web, to initiate ball-to-glove capture. In regard to this, U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,272, issued to Ichio Miyake et al. on Jun. 12, 1984, shows a thick semi-bendable anti-glare shield of which is made of an anti-glare material. This anti-glare shield is laced to the baseball glove and forms a permanent part of the baseball glove.
Other baseball glove web constructions have been made to improve a baseball glove's characteristics in retaining a ball. Examples of such web construction are shown in U.S Pat. Nos. 3,623,163, issued to Roland N. Latina on Nov. 30, 1971, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,880, issued to Robert L. Clevenhagen on Mar. 20, 1990. These patents show an improvement to the ball-retention capability of a baseball glove, and an improved means of absorbing a greater amount of ball-to-glove impact energy, respectively. In both cases, the respective web constructions have openings that allow a limited amount of sight perception.
None of the above U.S. inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.